Experimental Study on the Compressibility of Gelled Crude Oil

Summary The compressibility of gelled crude oil is crucial for the restart behavior of a pipeline. However, only a few reports have been published in this field. In this paper, experiments were conducted for the compressibility of waxy crude oil at temperatures lower than pour point. Results show that the compressibility of gelled crude oil is much higher than that of the liquid oil at temperatures above pour point. The compressibility characteristic curve of gelled crude oil is obtained in this research, which shows that the compressibility of gelled crude oil will gradually decrease during the compression process until the gel structure is completely destroyed and the void space is compacted.